CXX
Les Litanies De Satan
For The Fork
Hoboes working in train yards on oboes bust a lip or what does she make change with fire tongs
So you transitory or transporting the sort of private change making lounges
O Satan, lemme get two slices
Open prints or once I was confined to a Dairy Queen where the supreme court justices hung out
Aching for Vancouver’s everyday tea-time dress codes but before one could flatulate
O Satan, one to go and five zeppoles
You unlocked the hoboes toiling on cheap-skate trombones. The supermarket has an underground cheese showroom
The warrior the supervisor and his family sleeps on folding cots angry or birdlike the moisture
O Satan, square and a slice to go please
On the mid-sections of slaving hoboes whose leprous or somewhere, there, pastry chefs prepare a cake for their jailed accountant
And in the frosting write “with love.” The government puts to sleep some heavenly dice throwers
O Satan, how much are those babies
Hoboes slavering away in a vestibule already singing death your wheelchair half-eaten or a herd of sea cows
Giving birth to invisibility. This autumn I squeeze
O Satan, can I have a cup of water
The locksmith’s cheeks and prescribe or my credit card flattens out the sea at eight o’clock leaving
The key beneath the door knocker and your travelogue unbelievably crowds into a doorway to escape the cold
O Satan, can I get a slice, two slices actually, fresh tomatoes pepperoni
The key doesn’t work angels or the storm is finally calming your change purse spills onto the sidewalk in full view of those
Ladies whose jalopy extends past the cashier’s office to the jeweler’s down the block. He uses
O Satan, can I get a slice not too hot please?
Blind men laboring clearly You know them, recognize them? The long racks of bombs and missiles
Or don’t you and so severely let people know at the day’s end the cool metals
O Satan, spinach roll and a fresh mozzarella
The locksmith alchemizes. A soupless metropolis has no views, also no waterfowl
Only sheeps attired in flame retardant wool frocks lately designed for horses
O Satan, lemme get a baby to go
The locksmith, consoling a man who has dropped his failed asparagus soufflé at his feet
We applaud your being slapped around the salt mines and the laundromat
O Satan, can I have another Snapple please
The locksmith, working on locks, posing before a door you ended up kicking in, Hoboes in oak trees splicing together a cash register below
The front of Jesus’ sure-fire unemployment parade in April
O Satan, one-twenty-five you said? I’ve got twenty-five
Toiling, the locksmith meets the Mets in the jailyard and in the hearts of girls
Cultivating Monday out of muddy or the love of gunboats on the Nile
O Satan, two slices of plain to go
Jaundiced Grand Marshal whose days in exile are lit up by foreign investors,
Confessor of dusty pensioneers and pope concealors
O Satan, lemme have this size soda
Adopted father of both of them lonelily getting off the bus, which one carries the cup of black coffee in her suitcase
A craps shooter chased on foot from Duluth to South Dakota?!
O Satan, I need three large pies
Directions
Go down the well-lit corridor and take a right and then up a flight of stairs or two.
If you bump your head on the ceiling, you’ve gone too far and should turn around. Down near the end of the block
You’ll see the entrance to a vacuum store, and to the right the offices of an insurance company.
Take a left at the ATM and past the abandoned building. In the distance you can see an Arby’s.
Don’t take another step, you’re close. At about your nine o’clock there’s a store front
And just beyond it a door with a brand new dead bolt. Ring the bell and I’ll come down and unlock the door so I can pay you.